Review and Analysis: United States Cluster Munitions and Unexploded Ordnance Left in Laos after the Second Indochina War

Abstract

Cluster munitions release dozens of smaller bomblets that rain deadly ammunition on armored tanks, vegetation and troops, effectively striking broad areas of war zone landscapes in one launch. However, only about 60% of bomblets detonate immediately and those that fail to detonate fall to the ground and can lie dormant for years. The legacy of cluster munitions in Laos from the Second Indochina War is unexploded bomblets across the landscape that unexpectedly detonate years later, injuring and killing children, farmers, and other civilians long after the war is over. In Laos, the United States (US) military operation against the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a network of foot and bicycle paths, waterways, and truck routes along the Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam borders linking North and South Vietnam began in 1959. By the 1960s, as the war escalated, trail traffic was interdicted frequently by CIA and US Air Force using tactical herbicide spraying to defoliate dense vegetation and bombing to disrupt supplies and North Vietnamese troops dispersed along the 16,000-kilometer trail. Unexploded ordinance (UXO), including cluster munitions, from U.S. bombings continued in recent years to detonate, kill, maim and injure Laotians and render agricultural lands too hazardous to cultivate. The primary objectives of this study are to document: 1) the long-term consequences and impacts of the US Air Force bombing of Laos during the Second Indochina War (1959 to 1973); 2) the United States removal of unexploded ordnance and cluster munitions; and 3) worldwide relief efforts to help the Laotians maimed by unexploded ordnance and cluster munitions.